and pay off what my father owes?”

He replied:

Praise be to Allah. If the buyer’s aim is to obtain dirhams, and he intends to purchase a commodity on deferred payment so that he can sell it and receive its price, this is called “tawarruq” (obtaining cash through purchase and resale), because his aim is silver money, not the commodity itself.

The scholars have differed over whether this is blameworthy. ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and a group of scholars of Medina, including Mālikīs and others, disapproved of it. This is also one of the two positions reported from Ahmad. Others permitted it, but the stronger view is that it is blameworthy.

He—may Allah have mercy on him—was asked:

A man has an outstanding debt and needs goods or an animal for his own use or for trade. He asks someone to sell it to him on credit, but that person does not have it. May the person approached buy it and then sell it to him on deferred payment? May he appoint the prospective buyer as his agent to purchase it, then sell it to him afterward at a profit they agreed upon before the purchase?

He replied:

If a debtor has the means to repay his debt, he must do so. If he is in financial hardship, he must be granted more time. It is not permissible to replace his debt with a new debt against him through a transaction or otherwise. As for a deferred-payment sale undertaken independently, if the buyer’s intention is to benefit from the commodity